


Eden's Apple

by leporicide



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cybercops, Detective Noir, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leporicide/pseuds/leporicide
Summary: A murder and a trail of artificial limbs lead Shirogane Takashi to a boy with glowing eyes and perfect skin.





	1. The Adam

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who put everything on hold for Shance Week. Here's more science fiction but now with more murder and sex. (In the future).  
> This is thanks to jennypen. I'm bad at prompts.
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> Everything under the sun really. Unbeta'd.

 

Shirogane’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He’s lost his voice, as the crowd moves against him in sensual waves, pulling him slowly from left to right. The music is deafening, pounding into his ears with an aggression he catches himself mirror in the reflection of his eyes on grey mornings. A quiet violence, a secret _thing_ that creeps in his shadows, copies his movements perfectly, if only off for the slight tension in his muscles.

He feels like that now, as a body rubs up to him, sliding too close that he can feel the stick of their sweat, muddled by the neon paint and glittering gold teeth. It’s almost dreamlike, how vast and yet, so very small this club is. Shiro manages to dislodge himself from one person only to be clutched tightly by another. Roaming hands trail up his chest, his back and some sliding dangerously close to his arm. That’s the deal breaker apparently, the moment a fingertip accidently traces the cool metal, much too cool for the heat of the air.

Shiro uses his arm to push against the crowd, past the withering bodies, the melodic laughing and makes his way to the center. His eyes scan the crowd, trying to block out the pulsing base of white noise. The burning feeling of being watched snaps his head forward, nearly pushing a girl to the ground when he catches it.

Blue eyes, glowing in the low light, like a beacon that draws Shiro closer to search for survivors in the restless sea. He doesn’t find any survivors in Lance though, just the steady bobbing limbs that float to the surface when the storm settles.

He tries to call out, ignoring the pull of the dancers around him to barrel through, but Shiro has long since lost his voice, lost it when he put the pieces together, when he felt the pale whites of his knuckles against chilled lips.

Lance doesn’t move from his spot, standing firm and the crowd flows around him unnaturally. No one clings to his frame, no painted nails scratching at his arms or hands roaming his waist. They move around him, circling away from him as they flow towards Shiro. It’s as if a current is dragging him away. His eyes send shadows of blue reflection down his cheeks.

“Lance!” He finally calls out, spotting the young man beginning to turn away. He’s going to vanish before Shiro again, fog that floats just above the surface of the sea that extends forever. “Lance!” He’s toppling people over.

Lance watches him, body half turned in the opposite direction. He’s saying something, Shiro realizes in panic. His lips are moving slowly, off set by the rhythm of the music. Shiro’s tries not to blink, afraid to miss something, _anything_. When he finishes, Lance smiles and it’s big and goofy, like he remembers, reaching up to his eyes.

He’s gone when Shiro closes his eyes to breath.

\--- 1 Month Prior ---

“You’re going to need to take better care of yourself, Shiro,” Hunk reprimands, gingerly holding the falling pieces of Shiro’s prosthetic in his hands, turning it over to inspect it carefully. “If you’re too reckless, you might end up in worse shape.”

“I know,” Shiro sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he rests the busted tech on the workshop table. Hunk looks up at him from his magnifying glasses. His eyes look impossibly large and Shiro tries to stop the smile that cracks under their glare. “I’ll be more careful.”

Hunk frowns. “You always say that,” he mutters, returning to the task of resembling the machinery, delicately pulling the wires away to free the inner workings. He taps at a few of the circuits, watching the sparks carefully for signs of internal wiring damage.

Hunk Garett has known Shiro since his first upgrade, convinced him that the makeshift scramble of parts he called an arm was a joke, barely even able to grasp a gun properly. Shiro remembers that day fondly, down to the excitement in Hunk’s voice when he asked if he could personally design it. Since then, he’s always returned, arm hanging limb after taking damage from a sting operation. Each time Hunk would pretend to be annoyed, lecture him with a frown on his face, but always had Shiro leave with some new addition. 

“It seems to be fine. Just the outer frame took the hit.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Hunk pulls off the glasses, blinking as he refocuses to face Shiro. “What did you even do this time?”

“I ripped a steering wheel off a moving vehicle.”

Hunk’s frown deepens. “Not that that’s not reckless but that’s not enough for this kind of dent.”

“I wasn’t in said vehicle while it happened.”

“Oh,” is all Hunk says, eyebrows crawling up his forehead. Shiro has the decency to look embarassed.

“It wasn’t as well thought out as I’d like to admit.”

Hunk gets up from the work table, picking out materials from the thousands of shelves that litter his small shop and bundling them in his hands. He looks inexplicably small, standing on his tip toes to reach the high. Shiro knows better, that Hunk’s large form comes with the secret of military scars, burned deep into his flesh as a constant reminder that sometimes, there’s no saving people like them from what they’ve done.

When Hunk returns, he drops a series of small metalwork on the table, stacked in glass jars that remind Shiro of old cartoons of witch’s brew. The liquid silver sloshes inside, never stilling itself in its chamber. It’s memorizing, and although he knows it’s rather old school to liquefy storage metals, not since grafting has taken a whole new level in the bio-engineering department, he finds himself drawn to it. Hunk is old school himself, opting to wear magnifying glasses than upgrading to optics but that’s something Shiro likes, finds solace in the rapidly advancing world.

It takes a while for him to realize that Hunk is talking to him. “What?”

Hunk looks up from his work, careful fingers attached to smaller tools that break off into their own fingers, rapidly welding into the inner circuitry of his palm. His hand closes without his will, a reflex to the nerve testing taking place. “I said, has there been any progress on the assassination case?”

Shiro hums, watching the little fingers click boards together and twitch. “I have a new lead, but it already feels cold.”

“I’m surprised they put so little men on it. Aren’t you working alone?”

“No,” Shiro shakes his head, leaning back against the wooden chair. “Sendak is working with me, but with his upcoming retirement, I’m getting a new partner by the end of the week.”

“So two people?”

“We have smaller divisions under us.”

Hunk rolls his tongue on his lips, a habit of concentration as he moves down the prosthetic, careful to mold the metal. “Low profile on a high-profile case?”

“They want to keep it small. The public doesn’t know about it. _You_ shouldn’t know about it.”

A shrug of shoulders. “Are you surprised?”

“Not after I learned you’ve been hanging around Pidge.”

Shiro catches the small smile that dances around the edge of Hunk’s mouth, upturned corners in a fondness that makes him want to reflect his own. “Still—to think, Dr. Zarkon is one of the most famous men on Earth and now, he’s six feet under.”

“ _Actually_ ,” Shiro murmurs, pulling his hand when Hunk gives him room, making sure all his fingers curl accordingly. “He’s still at the station. They’re looking into the details of cause of death.”

“I thought a bullet hole through the head is pretty obvious.”

“And that’s why you’re not in the force.”

“I _quit_ the force,” Hunk says sourly, a pout forming on his face but the air is still light. Shiro doesn’t know how to respond. After a while, when Hunk releases his hand, fully functional and glistening with new steel, he continues. “I wonder who wanted him dead.”

Shiro wiggles each finger before rolling his wrist, enjoying the soundless movement of the tech, effortlessly bending to his thought process. Brilliant work, as always. “Maybe they were after his company?”

“Galra Engineering? Don’t they know it’s primitive to shoot the boss?”

“Maybe it’s more than that,” Shiro eases himself up from the seat, ignoring the way his feet seem to have fallen asleep. “Maybe he was selling something they wanted?”

“Maybe,” Hunk says, leading him to the door. “Or maybe they wanted what he was making.”

\---

The station is rowdy when Shiro walks through the double doors, promptly dodging a running intern, coffee hot in their hands. Everyone was scrambling towards ringing phones, comms blinking loudly and holographs circling every desk. When he reaches his shared space, Sendak is busing himself with a call himself.

“No,” he growls, fingers clutching the receiver with enough force to crack the plastic. Shiro watches him from the corner of his eye as he takes a seat at his own desk, booting up his holograph. “I can’t speak of the progress of the case. No—No, it’s being handled. Ma’am, this isn’t a fucking circus.”

The call ends quickly, with Sendak slamming the phone back into place and sighing, leaning back to rub his temple. He looks older in moments like these, eyes sunken in from late nights and Chinese takeout.

“Is it a bad time to ask what’s going on?”

Sendak glares at him, eyes trailing down to examine the sleekness of Shiro’s arm. “It leaked. The media is in a fucking frenzy.”

“How?”

“My opinion? Haggar didn’t even wait for the body to go cold before running off to tell.”

Haggar works in the basement with the dead bodies, and sometimes she works upstairs with the not dead bodies. Though, if asked, all she would say is that she’s in the business of diagnosing.

“At least,” Shiro turns to face the other cop. “Tell me she finished her report.”

Sendak doesn’t offer him any confirmation other than flinging a folder at him, He catches it easily enough, enjoying how the crisp paper crumbles slightly in his grip. Haggar was one of the few members who refuse to go digital, her reports always handwritten in clean cursive. He’s grown rather found of reading them.

It takes him a while to find the section that depicts the wound, scanning the document before his mouth falls agape in surprise. “Is this genuine.”

“The old hag has never been wrong before.”

_Zarkon died by a bullet wound inflicted to the head at approximately 1300. Judging from the trajectory and shape of the hole, the bullet was shot from close quarters, likely a mere 4 feet away from the victim. Shot ran through the skull, where it split into 8 parts, with the largest exiting from the back of the neck, 3 cm from the right ear._

“For someone to get that close—” Shiro starts.

“They’d have to have known him.”

“Shit,” the case is leaving difficult and smashing into the territory of ugly. “It was an inside job.”

\---

When Shiro leaves that night, a plan to question the immediate employees tomorrow fresh on his mind, it’s raining. The city is packed, impossible to own a car and worse to speed around a cruiser, so he waits for the bus with everyone else, letting the rain soak his skin.

It's a shaky ride, the streets having been neglected by the government for a careless number of years but he’s grown used to it. Shiro stands in the aisle, using his prosthetic to keep a hold of the railing as people shuffle in and out. Soon, he finds himself standing next to a younger boy, white hoodie pulled up to block his face.

Shiro doesn’t understand why he’s drawn to looking at him, just like the liquid metal that swirls in its jar. He feels this urge, a monstrous desire he hasn’t felt since, _well_ since Matt, to ripe the hoodie off, stare into the face of the stranger. His prosthetic feels hot.

In the end, Shiro doesn’t have to. The stranger turns to face him, as if feeling Shiro’s growing obsession. “You look tired.”

Shiro isn’t expecting the _blue_ , bright and glowing, too light to be natural. It reminds him of the glowing sighs in the second district, blaring LEDs of XXX. “Yeah,” Shiro mutters, blinking slowly, unsure of what to say. “I am.”

The stranger grins, his skin is warm compared to the near colorlessness of Shiro’s. It’s almost out of place in their city, shrouded in clouds and false sunlight. He looks _healthy,_ and it’s unnatural. “Work keeping you busy?”

“Yeah,” he nods, watching the way the grin grows, goofy and much too large. He looks young, younger than Shiro, if only by a couple years.

The stranger mirrors his nod, eyes narrowing and the blue is almost a holograph of its own. “Not to be rude,” he can’t stop himself. “But are those optic implants?”

Blue eyes widen as a hand makes its way to his face, long fingers tracing the bones of his cheek as if he forgot what his face must look like. The grin is still there, but it appears softer to Shiro for some reason, loose against his skin and held up by a calmness that reminds him of rain.

“Ah,” the stanger mumbles, looking away shyly. Shiro can’t help but find it endearing. “They are artificial.”

“I see.”

The silence continues until the bus stops, right at the second district. The stranger makes to exit and Shiro moves to give him room to slip past. “Well, nice chit chatting, officer.”

Shiro’s about to call out, as the stranger glides by him, surprised by the sudden awareness of who he was before feeling a tap on his chest, right against the flat holo badge that glows quietly in the dimly lit bus. Instead, red blossoming on his cheeks embarrassingly, he mutters out a “same to you” as the man leaves, hopping down and disappearing from his sight.

It is only when Shiro reaches his apartment, fitting the key to the door, that he realizes the stranger was completely dry.


	2. Still Raining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How many Gods are you praying to?” Says the stranger.  
> “As many as will listen.”  
> “That’s not many at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slowly but surely, im gonna finish this shance. here's more plot and science fiction. E next chapter, you have been warned.

Lance clutches his arm, watching the wound stain his arm an ugly red, seeping into the white fabric of his shirt. “Shit,” he whispers, holding his breath and pushing hard against the brick of the building, thinning his frame from view as a couple of security guards run past. Their boots are heavy, reinforced metal clucking hard on tiled floors of the restaurant halls.

The colors are blaring, screaming at him to move his shoulders, push himself free from the wall. He bites his tongue, pulling his focus and silencing the grunt in his throat as he dashes towards the exit into the alleyway. There’s more shouting to his right, the boots crushing down on broken glass and blood, an unsettling mix of wetness that reminds Lance of bones. Bright reds and purples assault his eyes, melting together as he deconstructs his setting. He blinks once, twice, waits for his optic lens to stabilize. His heart is hammering, threatening to burst out of his ribcage as he shoves the door open, cringing at the sound it makes as it slams against the wall.

“What was that?” He hears called behind him, setting his nerves afire and making him forget the shooting pain in his arm as he shuffles down the narrow alley His feet move swiftly despite his blood feeling thick with fear, like each vein is clotting. By the time a few hired men arrive to the door, Lance is already safely hiding behind a dumpster, further down and out of view. His clutches himself, staring at his feet, almost bare with the skin-tight fabric of the lithangimer suit clinging to him, from his neck to his toes.

God is crying.

The rain is calming to him. It helps settle the frantic analysis of his optics, lessens the information output so the numbers aren’t running through Lance’s vision. It does nothing for the splitting headache or the gnawing pain in his arm. He closes his eyes, watching the neon signs behind his eyelids dim into a gentle buzzing that rattles his sensitive ears, still tuned into the heavy drop of metal shoes. The water cools the exposed skin of his face, unable to penetrate the suit but adding a soothing weight. He’s cold. Sitting behind the trash and chilling to the bone and he can’t find it in himself to move, frozen with the immediate knowledge of what he’s done.

He wishes he could feel sick.

“Fuck,” Lance mutters, anger building inside him, hot fury as he slams his fist into the metal his back rests against, denting it harshly with ease. “Fuck,” he repeats, much more quietly as he moves his uninjured hand to run through his hair, matted and sticking to his forehead before gripping the strands in frustration.

Lance wants to pray. He doesn’t know how, never really learned himself but he’s seen it enough times, through the screen of a television. Intertwining his fingers as he faces toward the sky, maneuvering his body to rest on his thighs. Red spurts from the hole in his arm. He closes his eyes. The rain runs down his cheeks, falling heavy from his lashes. He opens his mouth but finds he is unable to say anything, that no words flow like a miracle through his lips. He isn’t sure of what he wants to pray for. Maybe sanctuary, he thinks.

When he finally finds his voice, he feels eyes watching him.

Lance refuses to look, keeps his eyelids tight, determined to finish whatever he’s started and come what may, find whatever inner peace might be offered to him. The person is standing in front of him now, their shadow casting over Lance’s body, cold as the water. Their boots crush against the glass of shattered bottles by the dumpster. They make no further move towards him, standing and waiting. A smell picks up and Lance registers that whoever it is smokes cheap cigarettes, minty and clean.

“How many Gods are you praying to?” Says the stranger.

“As many as will listen.”

“That’s not many at all.”

Lance cracks open his eyes, no wait time for them to adjust as they flitter through focuses. He first looks at the shoes, clearly being abused by the rain. He trails upwards to land on a nostalgic expression, almost sympathetic except for the small smile at the edge of his lips. Lance’s hands fall to his sides, shock evident on his face, morphing into anger. He opens his mouth.

“Keith Kogane, huh?” Shiro asks, glancing down at the holographic file that floats above his wrist. Sendak is shuffling beside him, hands in his pocket as the elevator takes them higher and higher to the office Zarkon’s body was found. He shifts through the basic information, new to the force, scored near perfect in the aptitude tests. A model citizen for the job, born right here in the city. “He looks, kinda  _ young _ .”

Sendak keeps his eyes focused on the meter, following the numbers climbing up the closer they get to their destination. “I hear the program is starting to groom ‘em young anyway.”

“Yeah, but he looks fresh.”

Shiro gets no response as the familiar ding signals the doors sliding open. He closes the file, following the bigger man down the narrow corridor, both sides encased in glass, impossible to see anything but their reflection. The whole building has him feeling off, a sinister air that makes it harder to breathe with every step they take further into the office building. They reach a door at the end of the hallway, the only one on this floor, with the bright numbers of 000 staring back at them in violent purple.

Sendak pushes the door open with his shoulder, grunting in annoyance as they move towards the secretary. The woman doesn’t look up at them as they make it to Zarkon’s office. Shiro is in slight awe, watching the woman continue to work despite the apparent murder of her boss.

“Hey, Sendak?” He asks, turning to face the other man as they enter the large room. “Who’s got control of the company now?”

“No idea,” Sendak responds, heading for the desk, stepping over the hologram of the last picture taken of the body, flickering in and out of life on the floor. “There’s been talk that he has an illegitimate heir.”

Shiro sighs. “Of course he does.”

He follows Sendak’s lead, making sure to take in the murals on the wall. Beautiful paintings of women and men, all dressed in the biomedical suits the Galra Engineering Company produces, sleek and black, tightly coiled fibers running down the skin like veins. It’s unsettling to look at, the twisted smiles of happy military officials donning the protection. Shiro can never imagine himself in one.

“The guy works here for twelve years and not a single personal photo?” He turns to face Sendak, who’s standing behind the large white desk in the room, smooth like glass, with a frame in his hand. He flips it so Shiro can see it’s a diploma from Voltron University. He frowns, moving up to pluck it from the other.

“We graduated from the same place.”

“Maybe you two have more in common.” Shiro narrows his eyes as a cheeky grin glides onto Sendak’s face.

“There’s nothing useful in here.”

Shiro sets the frame down, moving behind the desk to look at the layout of the room. Black glass encompasses all the walls, except for the narrow door. One entrance and one exit. The desk is the furthest back, but Zarkon was shot near the couches in the center. He was meeting someone. The hologram flickers in and out and Shiro catches a near peaceful smile on the CEO’s lips.

“He was meeting someone he knew,” Shiro says after the quiet stretches on for too long.

“The secretary logs show no visitors around the time of death.”

“They bypassed her.”

Sendak looks at him, curious but not unwavering. “There’s no footage on the SIMI recording tapes.”

“They bypassed it too.”

Sendak moves to stand where Shiro is, looking at the room. “How could they bypass both the front desk and the SIMI’s AI? The purpose of AI security is for it to be unbreachable.”

“Well,” Shiro says, opening the drawer and finding a small notepad. The only thing that seems out of place in this perfect office. Scribbled in messy handwriting, as if written in a haste, lies the numbers 117-9875. Shiro rips the sheet and folds it into his pocket. “They could, if they were never recognized as a threat.”

On the way out, Shiro turns to say goodbye to the woman clicking away on a computer, the only one on the floor it appears. She doesn’t look up from her task, scanning some paperwork. Her eyes though, appeared to be optic implants, glowing a bright yellow as she worked. 

The ground floor opens to a more joyous environment, with multiple rooms leading to other businesses, people moving about. There’s a Chinese restaurant to his right, bustling with a crowd of lunch-goers. Shiro enjoys the colors of the lightening until his eyes settle on the few broken windows.

“Getting hungry?” Sendak calls to him, halfway out the door.

Shiro moves to catch up. “No, just looking. I never knew this was here.”

“This city is huge, Takashi. You’re not expected to know every joint.”

“I guess,” Shiro shrugs, assuming his place in the passenger seat of the police cruiser while Sendak starts the engine.

“Well, your new partner is probably at the station already. Why don’t you take him?”

\---

When they park the cruiser and head up the stairs to the station, Shiro spots him. Sitting where his desk is, Keith Kogane smokes a Red, no fog leaving his mouth but Shiro can smell the mint as they grow closer. He looks a lot less young in person, draped a similar uniform, zipped up the collar, his mouth only peeking out to hold up the cigarette.

Shiro makes his way over to him, waving off Sendak halfheartedly. Keith can apparently sense him because he looks up for the first time since they’ve entered as Shiro approaches. His eyes seem rather dull compared to the ones Shiro has been running into lately.

“Hey,” he greets, dropping his coat on the chair as the other gets up to formally greet him, moving forward to shake his hand. “You must be Mr. Kogane.”

“Keith is fine,” the man responds, pulling out the smoke, watching the fire burn out and slipping it into his pocket.

“Welcome to the station. I’m Shiro. I’m pretty sure the desk over there has been cleaned out for you.”

Keith follows his finger to the desk to the right of him, nodding before picking up the box at his feet. Shiro had missed it entirely when looking and something about that makes him feel unhappy. Keith makes quick work of unpacking, pulling out his holocomp and a few framed photos, including what looks  like an elementary classroom picture.

It holds Shiro’s attention, the fifteen or so kids lined up with a woman. It takes him a few seconds to realize only the woman is smiling, each child staring blankly at the camera in matching white uniforms. It’s unnerving, Shiro thinks as he quickly scans for Keith, finding him to the far right, hand in hand with another boy with darker skin and dull blue eyes. Shiro stares at the face, feels it familiar but the thought is lost at the tip of his tongue.

Keith startles him when he talks. “Brief me on the current case?”

Shiro sucks in a breath, calming his nerves before grinning, enjoying how Keith mirrors it. “Sure.”

When he gets a moment of free time, he looks at the crumpled note in his pocket, scribbling the numbers down into his own notebook before slipping it back into his pocket. There’s a reason Zarkon wrote them down in a hurry, and they’re not an area code Shiro recognizes.

\---

He’s the last in the office and the only one waiting for the bus by the time he leaves. Standing alone in the night mist, the distinct sounds of cars flying past him as he waits. By the time the bus shows up, he feels the fingertips on his living hand are frozen. The doors open and as he walks inside. The bus driver AI’s hologram spares him a flash of a smile that Shiro has long since gave up trying not to respond to with his own.

It’s eerily silent and he realizes he’s one of the two people on the bus, an experience he’s never had in the five years he’s been working in the city. There’s a man sitting in the middle of the bus, hood up and hunched, as if he fell asleep that way. Shiro sits across, facing him from the other side of the bus. The stranger looks up as soon as he thinks maybe he is actually sleeping and he’s assaulted by brilliant blue.

Shiro suddenly finds it hard to breathe.

“Hello stranger,” says the stranger. “Or should I say officer?”

Shiro can only find it in himself to nod, unable to explain his inability to form a coherent sentence as the man smiles, bright compared to the gloomy backdrop outside. In seconds, he’s standing before him, body lean with muscle and a knowing glint in his expression. Shiro plays along.

“Please, stranger is just fine.”

That earns him a laugh, even though it sounds hollow, even though it rattles through the empty vehicle and has the AI scanning their row. Shiro’s drawn to it, drawn to him.

“We don’t have to be,” says the man, eyes glowing mischievously. Shiro raises an eyebrow, opens his mouth to ask him what he means when lips capture his. They’re soft, the lips, almost delicate in how they brush against his. He almost forgets where he is, lulling into a sense of how  _ right  _ this feels before reality dawns on him. The stranger removes himself before Shiro could form a protest. He licks his lips. “I’m Lance.”

Shiro follows the movement. “Shiro. Do you always make out with strangers on the late night buses?”

Lance smiles, though he does look red under the hood, shameful despite his actions. “Only the pretty ones.”

He doesn’t get flustered, which makes Lance turn even darker.

“You’re not very good at this, the faking.”

“Oh?” He pops the word like gum, eyes widening with faux surprise. “Maybe you could give me lessons?”

That has Shiro rolling his eyes, almost forgetting what he finds so captivating about Lance in the first place. “Just as terrible.”

Lance has the decency to look embarrassed, staring down at his sneakers, fingers wrapping on the support rail. Shiro notes that he’s practically being straddled and gently pushes his palms against Lance’s thighs to move him off. That earns him a surprise yelp, the man jumping away from him causing his hood to fall.

Something about his face strikes familiar, despite the panic in his optics, flickering brightly against the passing neon signs. He looks lost, almost confused but the expression is gone as quickly as it came, replaced with something cold. Lance doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

“How about lunch?” Shiro asks before he can stop himself, unsure of where this comes from.

Lance looks up, eyes remaining mechanical but there’s a small smile playing on his lips.

“I’d like that, Stranger Shiro.”

“It’s just Shiro.”

“Okay, Just Shiro.” Shiro sighs, leaning back in his seat as the bus dings. It appears to be Lance’s stop because he’s making his way towards the door.“So, tomorrow. Any preferences?” 

The mischievous glint is back in his eyes. “I’m thinking Chinese. Did you hear about the tragedy at Galra Engineering?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha same lance

**Author's Note:**

> come kill me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bogboogie) or [tumblr](ghostering.tumblr.com). will pay cash reward.


End file.
